Editorial: Legislature delivered state a mixed bag this session

Dec. 22, 2013

Some of the laws the Legislature passed this year will help, such as the expansion of Medicaid. Others, like requiring Michiganders to buy a separate insurance policy to cover abortions, without making an exception for rape or incest, won't.

Written by

The Detroit Free Press Editorial Board

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Once upon a time, the weeks between Thanksgiving and the new year were slow. Little happened in the worlds of business and politics, as folks geared up for the holidays and hunkered down for the winter.

But for the last two years, the Michigan Legislature has turned that convention upside down, passing a flurry of laws in the waning weeks of the year. This year’s session wasn’t quite as busy as last year’s disastrous lame-duck session, which saw Michigan become a right-to-work state.

Though lawmakers passed a flurry of last-minute bills, some were left behind as the session closed, the Free Press’ Kathleen Gray reported last week — and that’s not entirely a bad thing.

Some of the laws the Legislature passed this year will benefit the state and its residents, such as the expansion of Medicaid and the adoption of the Common Core educational standards. But all in all, lawmakers’ output in 2013 is a mixed bag — and that’s putting it kindly.

Take the Legislature’s vote to require Michiganders to purchase a separate insurance policy to cover abortions, dubbed “rape insurance” by some. The additional coverage must be purchased before a woman becomes pregnant, and doesn’t make an exception for rape or incest. It does make an exception for the life, but not the health, of the mother. Gov. Rick Snyder vetoed a similar provision added to an insurance reform bill passed last year, but because this law was enacted via petition — and because the GOP-led Legislature chose to approve it — it bypassed the governor’s desk and signature.

Had the Legislature decided not to act, the measure would have been up for a statewide vote next year, and poll results indicate that it wouldn’t have passed.

So what we’re getting at is, sometimes, doing nothing is better than doing something.

Well done ... almost

Even when the Legislature made the right call in theory, lawmakers found a way to throw some serious kinks in the works, as in the expansion of Medicaid, funded by the federal Affordable Care Act. After months of wrangling — and some of the sternest words we’ve heard from Snyder — the Legislature approved the expansion. While about 470,000 low-income Michiganders will gain access to health care, the expansion won’t go into effect until mid-March. That means the state will lose out on $70 million in federal funding — money that the state will have to make up.

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Lawmakers eventually approved Common Core educational standards, adopted by the Michigan Department of Education in 2010 and on track for implementation in 2014 — until right-wing GOPers decided to strip the funding that supported the standards from the state budget. Common Core, developed by the National Governors Association, is an attempt to create national educational standards. Adoption of the standards is optional, but states that do are eligible for federal grant money.

The months that lawmakers spent rehashing standards that school districts had spent years preparing for threw educators and educational advocates into a tizzy over the summer, with state Superintendent of Education Mike Flanagan predicting mass confusion if the standards weren’t adopted.

Do it, but do it well

On one subject, the Legislature knocked it out of the park: In last year’s budget, the federal government slashed the amount of money available for lead abatement, a persistent environmental problem that impacts the health of thousands of Michigan children. Those cuts were exacerbated by the federal sequester. In 2013, state lawmakers from both sides of the aisle collaborated to allocate $1.2 million from the state’s general fund to remove lead from homes in which children have been lead poisoned. Lawmakers put Michigan kids first, and we applaud their effort.

But with the year’s legislative session over, most of what was left on the table needs work.

The state House and Senate have produced different versions of bills that would expand the Educational Achievement Authority, a statewide reform district composed of failing schools. The EAA can take over schools that rank in the bottom 5% for academic performance (that’s 137 schools); the 15 schools currently in the EAA are all in Detroit. The House’s version of the bill would have capped the EAA at 50 schools. The Senate bill would remove the cap, but delay implementation until 2015.

The EAA, formed by an interlocal agreement between Detroit Public Schools and Eastern Michigan University, should be codified in state law. Reform districts like the EAA have worked in other states, but Michigan lawmakers need more data before expanding the district’s reach. Some EAA students made significant progress during its first year, but one year of test scores isn’t enough to justify a broad increase in the number of schools in the reform district’s purview.

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Lawmakers shouldn’t rush this one. Ensure that the EAA is delivering consistent results for Michigan students before broadening the district’s scope. And some transparency wouldn’t hurt. District officials have been less than open about the EAA’s funding. That’s got to change.

That’s not the only education bill that isn’t ripe for passage. Two bills that would require third-graders who aren’t proficient in reading to repeat the grade didn’t move in this legislative session. The bills are modeled after a Florida program that has had some positive short-term outcomes, but there are a few key differences — namely, funding. Florida has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to bolster reading proficiency, allocating $130 million for reading instruction in the last budget year alone.

One of the two third-grade retention bills that the Legislature is debating instructs school districts and the state education department to identify struggling readers, inform parents and suggest reading programs, but no lawmaker has proposed any significant dollar figure, much less the kind of money Florida spent. Education advocates say that without funding to boost reading proficiency in kindergarten through third grade, the program will simply result in tens of thousands of students being held back.

Priorities, or are they?

Also left on the table was one of Snyder’s pet issues, increased funding for roads. Snyder proposed an increase in the gas tax and in vehicle registration fees to generate about $1.2 billion for roadwork, but lawmakers didn’t include those upcharges in the state budget.

Maintaining the state’s physical infrastructure is important, but Michiganders are still feeling the pinch of the recession. With significant investment required at every level of the educational system and cash-strapped cities struggling to maintain services and fund benefits for retirees — not to mention the difficulty of passing any tax increase in Lansing — we’re not sure road improvements are the state’s most pressing need. Like many of the other topics under discussion in Lansing, this one needs more work.